Published by: Bloomsbury Children's, March 12th 2015
Genre: YA, High Fantasy
Pages: 368
Format: Ebook
Source: Bloomsbury Children's, via Netgalley
Lady Kestrel's engagement to Valoria's crown prince calls for great celebration: balls and performances, fireworks and revelry. But to Kestrel it means a cage of her own making. Embedded in the imperial court as a spy, she lives and breathes deceit and cannot confide in the one person she really longs to trust ...
While Arin fights to keep his country's freedom from the hands of his enemy, he suspects that Kestrel knows more than she shows. As Kestrel comes closer to uncovering a shocking secret, it might not be a dagger in the dark that cuts him open, but the truth.
Lies will come undone, and Kestrel and Arin learn just how much their crimes will cost them in this second book in the breathtaking Winner'strilogy.
The Winner's Crime has left me literally keening. How does Marie Rutkoski manage to manipulate my emotions so? I thought for most of the book that I didn't love it as much as book one, and while I still think that, I managed to get sent on a crazy spree of feelings in the last fifty pages and now I'm not sure what to think.
The Winner's Crime expands the world and treachery of the first book, and piles high stakes upon even higher stakes to a devastating degree. It's entertaining and enthralling and hurtful all at once. Parts of it are like watching a car crash, parts of it make you want to hide from the book forever, and other parts just make you scream. Literally, in my case.
Arin and Kestrel continue to be amazing characters, even if they are terrible at relationships and honesty. I love the new characters that were introduced as well, by which I mean the emperor was suitably hateful, the new ally predictably expendable, and Verex ... oh, Verex let me count the ways I love you. Verex is lovely and complex and caring and damaged and I could seriously afford to read his POV in the next book *looks pleadingly at Marie*. He added a new dimension to Kestrel, in my opinion, and I need their friendship to go somewhere (like maybe a rescue attempt ...)
To sum up the book: dangerous risks lay with heart-stopping romance and deadly politics in this wonderful-terrible book.
To sum up my tumultuous emotions: WHYYYY but also YESSSSSSS but also WHAT??
Characters ★★★★★
Setting/world building ★★★★☆
Writing ★★★★☆
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